Ethereum has established itself as the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, commanding an impressive $203 billion valuation at the time of writing. However, many crypto enthusiasts are predicting that Ethereum could reach much greater heights in the future. 

In this article, we’ll be taking a look at different scenarios for the price of ETH, including an Ethereum price prediction for 2040 and 2050. We’ll also be checking out the main factors that could drive Ethereum price growth over the long-term, and also consider some short-term predictions for the price of ETH.

Before we get started with the predictions, however, let’s quickly consider Ethereum’s price history to get a better understanding of how ETH has performed in the past.

Ethereum price history

The Ethereum project held an ICO in 2014 in which the founding team raised funds for development. In the Ethereum ICO, users were able to purchase ETH at a price of roughly $0.31 per coin.

Ethereum made its debut on the open market in the summer of 2015, and it spent several months beneath the $1 level before a rally in the spring of 2016 took the ETH price above $10 for the first time ever. The Ethereum price surpassed $100 for the first time ever by May 2017, and the coin managed to break the $1,000 milestone for the first time in January of 2018. 

Ethereum’s all-time high came in November of 2018, when the ETH price peaked around the $4,850 mark.

In terms of yearly returns, 2017 was the strongest year for Ethereum, with the ETH price increasing by a whopping 9,400% that year. However, 2018 turned out to be the toughest year for ETH holders to date, as the ETH price saw an 82% decrease. 

Historically, Q1 and Q2 have been the strongest quarters for ETH, with an average performance of +251% and 90.8%, respectively. 

Ethereum price prediction for 2040

Making predictions for such a long period of time is very difficult, especially when it comes to highly volatile assets like Ethereum. For example, if we assumed that Ethereum would continue its 5-year average yearly growth of 76.8%, 1 ETH would be worth $47 million by 2040. This is obviously not a realistic price target at all, as such a price would mean a $5.7 quadrillion market cap for ETH.

As another example, let’s take a look at what the ETH price would be in 2040 if ETH matched the average yearly growth of the S&P 500, the benchmark index for the U.S. stock market. Between 1957 and 2021, the S&P 500 has grown by an average of 11.8% per year. If ETH would grow by 11.8% per year on average, the ETH price prediction for 2040 would be approximately $12,200.

1 ETH would be worth $12,212 in 2040 based on a 11.8% yearly growth rate. Calculate your potential ETH profits with our Ethereum profit calculator. 

This is a much more realistic scenario, as it would translate to a $1.4 trillion market cap for Ethereum. Bitcoin has already reached a $1.2 trillion market capitalization at its peak, so a $1.4 trillion target for Ethereum in 2040 doesn’t sound impossible, especially if Ethereum continues to gain adoption.

Ethereum price prediction for 2050

Moving further into the future, let’s check out what the price of ETH would be in 2050 if the coin grew at the same rate as the average yearly growth of the S&P 500 (11.8%).

We won’t be using Ethereum’s average yearly growth as a benchmark, as we’ve already seen that it projects some truly outlandish prices.

If Ethereum were to grow by an average yearly rate of 11.8%, the ETH price prediction for 2050 would be approximately $37,250. This would imply a market capitalization of $4.5 trillion, based on the current ETH supply. 

So far, no cryptocurrency has been able to reach such a valuation. Even the total cryptocurrency market cap hasn’t managed to hit $4.5 trillion so far, as it peaked at $2.8 trillion in November of 20221.

Long-term catalysts for Ethereum

There are a a number of arguments why Ethereum could see strong price growth over the long term. Let’s take a look at some of the main long-term catalysts that could have a positive impact on the Ethereum price in the future.

ETH burning via EIP-1559

Arguably the most bullish fundamental factor going in favor of Ethereum is the EIP-1559 mechanism, which was introduced in August 2021. Under EIP-1559, the base fee paid for Ethereum transactions is burned, but users have the option to provide a “tip” to validators to have their transaction prioritized.

The deflationary pressure on the ETH supply was supercharged in September 2022, when the upgrade known as The Merge moved Ethereum over to a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. Now that Ethereum is running on Proof-of-Stake, the protocol needs to issue a much smaller amount of ETH than what was required during Ethereum’s Proof-of-Work era. 

Under the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism, the Ethereum protocol issued about 13,000 ETH per day. After the move to Proof-of-Stake, only about 1,600 ETH are issued daily. 

Combined with EIP-1559, this has actually resulted in the total supply of Ethereum decreasing. This deflationary pressure grows stronger when demand for Ethereum transactions increases, so we could see a significant decrease in the ETH supply if the network reaches mainstream adoption. This would contribute significantly to making Ethereum a good investment moving forward.

Scalability improvements

Scalability has been one of the biggest challenges hampering Ethereum’s potential for mass adoption. To put it simply—when there’s a lot of demand for transacting on Ethereum, the network becomes extremely expensive to use, even for basic operations. Ethereum transaction fees regularly exceeded $10 during the 2021 crypto bull market, which is simply too much for a network that is looking to provide widespread financial inclusion.

Thankfully, developers in the Ethereum ecosystem are well aware of these issues, and are working on improvements that will allow Ethereum to handle a much larger number of transactions at a fraction of the cost. 

In the future, we’ll see scaling improvements on the Ethereum base layer, especially sharding. In addition,there’s also layer 2 scaling solutions being created on top of the Ethereum mainnet, many of which you can already try out now thanks to platforms like Arbitrum and Optimism.

Ethereum price prediction for 2023-2024

Now that we’ve covered some long-term scenarios for Ethereum, let’s check out the ETH price prediction for 2023 and 2024 based on the current technical indicators.

Per the algorithmic Ethereum price prediction on CoinCodex, ETH could see a downturn in the next months, and the ETH price could drop as low as $580 in June 2023. However, the prediction forecasts Ethereum having a strong recovery from its lows, and embarking on a rally that would stop just short of $5,000 in February 2024. 

The bottom line

Overall, we can say that Ethereum has a lot of potential for future growth and is a strong choice if you want to invest in crypto. Ethereum is currently the leading platform for smart contracts and decentralized applications, and there currently aren’t any competitors that are posing a serious threat to Ethereum’s dominance. In fact, we’re seeing an increasing number of projects choosing to build on top of Ethereum instead of launching competitors of their own.

Making an ETH price prediction for 2040 or even 2050 is quite difficult, as Ethereum has been around for less than a decade and the price of ETH has displayed a lot of volatility. Even though it’s hard to say exactly what will happen to the ETH price in the future, Ethereum is easily one of the best cryptocurrencies to buy at the moment.